Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories

Kelly Church, Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories, 2018, black ash, sweetgrass, rit, copper, vial EAB, flashdrive, 9 12 × 4 12 in. (24.1 × 11.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase through the Decorative Arts and Crafts Endowment, 2020.49A-B, © 2018, Kelly Church

Artwork Details

Title
Sustaining Traditions-Digital Memories
Artist
Date
2018
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
9 12 × 4 12 in. (24.1 × 11.4 cm)
Copyright
© 2018, Kelly Church
Credit Line
Museum purchase through the Decorative Arts and Crafts Endowment
Mediums
Mediums Description
black ash, sweetgrass, rit, copper, vial EAB, flashdrive
Classifications
Subjects
  • Allegory — other — memory
Object Number
2020.49A-B

Artwork Description

Kelly Church is from an unbroken line of Anishinaabe basket makers. Along with her family, she harvests and processes the materials for her work. Sustaining Traditions—Digital Memories is a basket that carries the past, present, and future teachings of this art. Woven with black ash and Michigan-sourced copper, the radiant green color alludes to the emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has decimated black ash trees in over twenty-three US states and two Canadian provinces. When opened, the basket reveals a sealed glass vial with the carcass of the beetle. It also contains a computer flash drive with directions on how to harvest and prepare black ash for weaving, in case those traditions are lost without access to healthy trees.


This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World, 2022

Works by this artist (1 item)

A. Kinder or Rinder, Drawing on Door, 1887, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1952.13.82
Drawing on Door
Date1887
oil on canvas
On view

Exhibitions

Quilt featuring the portrait of a woman
This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World
May 13, 2022April 2, 2023
This Present Moment: Crafting a Better World showcases the dynamic landscape of American craft today.

More Artworks from the Collection

William Holbrook Beard, The Runaway Match, 1877, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum purchase, 1977.55
The Runaway Match
Date1877
oil on canvas
Not on view
John Henry Twachtman, Figure in Sunlight (Artist's Wife), ca. 1890-1900, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John Gellatly, 1929.6.137
Figure in Sunlight (Artist’s Wife)
Dateca. 1890-1900
oil on canvas
On view
Unidentified (Italian), Saint, 19th century, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Laura Dreyfus Barney and Natalie Clifford Barney in memory of their mother, Alice Pike Barney, 1952.13.157
Saint
Artist
Unidentified (Italian)
Date19th century
oil on canvas
Not on view